How to Disengage your Ego to Ease Suffering

(The goal for the system of meditation and mindfulness I recommend is to ease suffering. It is not to find one's true self, or to have a non-dual experience, or to have an experience of oneness. I am not discussing those phenomena in this post. And readers should also understand the subjects of identity-view, stream-entry, and awakening have many different definitions and are outside the scope of this post.)

The feeling of being/having a self is normal and you live with it all your life so most people don't notice it most of the time, and if they do notice it, it is usually somewhat vague.

Shinzen Young explains that all people also have no-self experiences many times a day where the feeling of self is absent but they don't realize it.

The only difference between an enlightened person and a non-enlightened person is that when the feel-image-talk self doesn’t arise during the day, the enlightened person notices that and knows that to be a clear experience of no-self. The non-enlightened person actually has that experience hundreds of times a day, when they’re briefly pulled to a physical-type touch or an external sight or sound. For just a moment there is just the world of touch-sight-sound. For just a moment there is no self inside that person but they don’t notice it! But just because they don’t notice it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

People can learn to notice when the feeling of self is absent. Some people call it a no-self experience. I call it "the feeling of no-self" because the self doesn't really go away. (The feeling occurs when the ego is disengaged as I will explain below.) The self, is in a sense, the aggregates of clinging:

https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf

That’s another thing people say: ‘There Is No Self’. That which was taken as ‘self’ is there; it’s simply these five aggregates, (which should be seen as not-self). That is what the Buddha said, but people never arrive at it because their whole practice is based on a denial: ‘There is No Self’.

I think of the aggregates as the unconscious processes that produce thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and senses of self and senses of no-self.  That self doesn't go away. The feeling of self is, just like everything we experience, produced by the aggregates. A no-self experience occurs when the aggregates are not producing a feeling of self. (This is not a question of materialism vs spirituality.)

Disengaging the ego is similar to what Shodo Harada Roshi calls seeing without the ego filter.

And since we are all walking around seeing things through our ego filter almost all the time, to suddenly be able to see without that filter is a surprise. But it is nothing that we have ever not had.

I have had a number of different types of no-self experiences and they never made a big impression on me, I never understood why anyone would consider them awakening. I started meditating when I was 11 or 12 years old so I never really developed a mature sense of what is normal, and throughout my life I have had many different types of unusual spiritual and paranormal experiences - my amazement threshold is very high. So while I would expect most people to react to this method (below) of producing a feeling of no-self the same way I do (it's pleasant, mildly amusing, and helps keep the ego disengaged), I can't guarantee it won't turn your world view upside down and shake you up. You should proceed at our own risk.

The easiest way I know to produce a feeling of no-self (of disengaging the ego) is as follows:

1. Prepare by quieting the mind with meditation.

2. Try to bring your mind into the present moment by observing your environment, look and listen to what is going on around you.

3. As you do that, watch your mind for mental chatter. Usually, when you give your mind a task to do, it requires attention and other conscious mental activity stops. So watching your mind for mental chatter will actually stop the mental chatter. As you watch the mind, notice the absence of mental chatter. If your mind won't be quiet, try meditating on the breath, and digging through layers of any emotions that might be distracting you to reveal their root cause.

4. Awareness of the absence of mental chatter may produce a feeling that something is missing. That chatter normally creates the sense of a person, yourself, that you talk to in your mind. The absence of that aspect of mental activity may create the feeling that something is missing, an emptiness, a feeling of not having a self. It may seem like if someone said something nasty, there would be no one to get offended.

It might take some practice to experience a feeling of no-self, initially awareness of it might be faint, but when it is happening, it is quite distinct. In order to have a strong clear experience, what Shinzen Young describes as a complete experience, you need, he says, to have sufficient concentration, clarity, and equanimity. Step 1 should provide equanimity (the absence of distracting emotions). Step 2 should provide concentration (the absence of distracting thoughts). Steps 3 and 4 should provide clarity. If you lack any of those three ingredients, spend more time on the step or steps that will provide what is lacking. The three qualities support each other, equanimity helps with concentration, concentration helps with clarity, and clarity helps with equanimity.

Be aware that there are other different phenomenon that can also give you a feeling like you don't have a self, and some interpretations of realizing anatta / losing identity-view don't involve a feeling of no-self at all. So I am not making any implications about the meaning of this experience.

Why is this particular type of experience useful?

At first it may seem to be just something interesting to do with the mind, somewhat fun, better than recreational drugs because it's legal and doesn't cause vomiting the way some entheogens do. But it also keeps your mind quiet in the present moment, and a quiet mind does not produce suffering.

Most suffering is caused by the ego. When the mind is quiet and in the present moment, and you are feeling like you don't have a self, you are not thinking in ways that will produce suffering. You are not thinking a normal stream of consciousness in which most thoughts are about how things relate to you or how things affect you. Your ego is not involved, it is disengaged.

• The feeling of no-self is useful because it is a biofeedback signal telling you that you are not engaging your ego.

  When you are more accomplished at noticing the feeling of no-self, you may recognize that mindfulness itself is a no-self experience. Being in the present moment, interrupts dependent origination and prevents suffering from arising by keeping the ego disengaged. You can pay attention to either aspect, the aspect of ending suffering, or the feeling of no-self, or both. But the effect is the same.

• If you can produce the feeling of no-self, then you will probably feel pretty good since your ego won't be making you suffer during that time.

• And because it is somewhat amusing and fun, it provides positive reinforcement that will encourage you to practice mindfulness during daily life.

• And during daily life if you find something upsets you, you can use this skill to disengage your ego and that should cause the upset to fade. It feels like you are dissolving your self, but you are only disengaging your ego.

Just keeping the mind quiet, focused on a feeling of no-self, is not a complete solution to suffering. There will likely be some emotional attachments that will be so strong you can't easily disengage your ego. You will get additional relief from suffering if you learn to observe how emotions arise, and to work through layers of emotions, and to let go of them by relaxing. But feeling like you don't have a self can be part of the solution.

Other things you can do to help reinforce or produce a feeling of no-self:

• Notice "automaticity" as you go about tasks in daily life. Notice that you do things automatically without being consciously in control. For example, when you walk you don't think about how to move, you just walk. Sometimes if your mind is distracted you walk without paying any attention to it at all.

• Notice that the stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect without anyone controlling it. 

• Observe the observer, the experiencer, the sufferer. Try to see how  your sense of self is just another projection into consciousness from the aggregates. Notice how the sense of self is constantly changing.

• Practice disengaging your ego. Look at your cell phone. First think, "my cell phone", then think, "the cell phone". Notice the difference? Do this a few times. Find various ways to practice this in daily life. For example, think:

  • My phone / The phone
  • My car / The car
  • My house / The house
  • My hand / The hand
  • My body / The body
  • My seeing / The seeing
  • My hearing / The hearing
  • My feeling / The feeling
  • My emotion / The Emotion
  • My fear / The fear (anger, guilt, regret, etc. etc.)
  • My thought / The thought
  • My opinion / The opinion
  • My (favorite sports) team / The team
  • My (favorite) music group / The music group
  • My Country / The Country (or name the country ie "The US")

  After practicing this for a while you will get a sense of the feeling of when your ego is disengaged and you can skip the "My" part and just do the "The" part. But try out the "My" part once in a while to refresh your experience of the contrast.

  This is especially good to do when something is upsetting you. You can use this to disengage your ego to lessen the suffering you experience. For example, if you hear a sound you don't like, think "My hearing / The hearing", or just "The sound". If you are sensitive to the feeling of no-self, it can feel like your self is dissolving, but it is only your ego disengaging. Your self, the aggregates, is still there.

More Info

More here.

And here: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

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How I Would Define of Buddhist Awakening

In this article I will discuss how I think Buddhist awakening should be defined.

Buddhism is explained at its most basic level by the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path which explain the cause of suffering and the end of suffering. So in Buddhism, awakening has to be about easing suffering. Most suffering is caused by attachment to the self-image and to diminish suffering those attachments have to be diminished. The fetter model of awakening in the Pali canon says that at stream-entry (the first stage of awakening) one loses identity-view. Exactly what losing identity-view means is subject to different interpretations. In my opinion, losing identity view should be understood to mean losing attachments to the self-image to the extent that there is a substantial reduction of suffering. I don't know if it is possible to lose those attachments 100% and I don't know that it is impossible either. But in my opinion:

Awakening should be measured by the loss of attachments to the self-image that result in lessened suffering.

Some people define awakening based on experiences that happen during meditation or by some type of non-dual or spiritual experience. There is no Pope in Buddhism and different people have different opinions. I can only say in my opinion:

Experiences only cause awakening if they also cause the loss of attachment to the self-image.

Just the experience by itself, without the loss of attachment to self-image, does not constitute awakening. The experiences by themselves are not necessary or in every case sufficient to cause awakening. 

Since I would measure awakening by loss of attachment to the self-image and not by any particular experience, there is not a good way to identify a moment to call stream-entry. Actually, I would define stream entry as when you understand from examining your own mind that the self-image is just an image and not a thing. But that can happen without causing loss of attachments to the self image. So for these two reasons I would not encourage people to seek or view stream-entry as the first stage of awakening.

(The reason I use the term self-image instead of self is because all of our thoughts arise into consciousness from unconscious processes, we never see how thoughts are constructed they just pop into awareness, and any thought of self that rises from unconscious process is not the self it is the self-image, it is an image projected by unconscious processes into consciousness. We are not able to conceive of the self we only know the self image.)

I also hold the opinion that:

Enlightenment, for most people, is a gradual process independent of exceptional experiences.

Not every one has exceptional experiences and some people who have an exceptional experience don't lose attachment to self-image from it. Awakening is said to be gradual in the Pali canon. Shinzen Young says most of his students awaken gradually and I think that is true for the general population.

I also believe everyone, even non-meditators, have some level of insight into anatta and therefore some level of awakening.

• Most people understand when they get distracted by stray thoughts that they don't control their thoughts.

• Most people understand they don't control their emotions and they sometimes have impulses that are not helpful.

• Most people realize that their egotistical tendencies can cause problems (suffering) for themselves and they would be better off if they were less egocentric.

• People know that when they walk or do other tasks, they don't pay attention to every movement, our bodies operate by themselves to a large extent.

Some people understand this better than others but I think everyone has some glimmer of some part of the fact that our mental and physical life is largely controlled by unconscious processes, which in Buddhist terminology are called the Five Aggregates of Clinging. And whatever amount of enlightenment a person has, they can gradually increase it by practicing meditation and mindfulness and work through the mula kleshas and develop insight into the cause of suffering in their own mind and begin to lose their attachments to the self image. 

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Gradual Awakening Part III

This is my third article on gradual awakening. The first is here, the second here. In this article I am going to propose a theory to explain why some people have gradual awakenings.

Different people, for whatever reason, brain wiring, brain chemistry, etc, experience certain mental phenomena at different levels of intensity.

For example, some people have the empty house experience (see below) and think, "This is enlightenment, now I know what it is". And other people have the same experience but it is not very intense and they don't think it is really important, it is kind of fun, but they might never think it was awakening unless they read that web article.

And the same thing is true of cessation/fruition. Some people like Ron Crouch (see below) have an intense experience and recognize it as awakening. Other people have fruition and enjoy the afterglow but don't see anything about anatta in it. Other people don't even notice fruition, they just notice an afterglow sometimes after a particularly good meditation session. When it is not intense, people wonder why anyone would think that was awakening.

The people who don't experience these things intensely,  keep meditating and over time they as Shinzen says (below) work through the mula kleshas and lose their attachment to their self-image gradually. This process also can happen for people who had an intense awakening experience as they deepen their enlightenment. 

Here is the empty house experience:
https://theconversation.org/what-is-enlightenment-no-i-mean-really-like-what-is-it/

Imagine as clearly as you can that you enter a large house that you have never been in before. You feel strange and kind of scared, there is furniture and drapes but no people. You wander around feeling the creepiness of being alone in this big house. You go from room to room not knowing what you will find. You start to get nervous and a little fearful being alone in this big house. You wonder how long it has been empty like this. In time the sense of the bigness and emptiness of the house starts to weigh heavily o­n your nerves. Finally, when you can not stand it any longer a shocking realization occurs to you: you're not there either! o­nly the experience exists.

Here is Ron Crouch's experience of fruition:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150315043206/http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/29/cessation/

Practitioners who have experienced the moment of Nirvana struggle to put it into words, because describing it can make it seem anticlimactic even though it is truly extraordinary. What it feels like is that there is “click”, “blip”, or “pop” that occurs for an instant. When it first happens it is so quick that the meditator could even miss it. However most people do stop and ask themselves “what was that?” It can be a bit baffling because it seems like nothing happened, and that is exactly right. For an instant absolutely nothing happened. There were no shining lights or angels, no pearly gates or choruses of joy, no transcendent experiences of unity with the cosmos or the divine. It is nothing like that at all. It may not be until you really think about it that you realize what an extraordinary thing that instant of absolute nothing really is.

As you reflect on it you see that there was something truly amazing about that moment. In that instant everything disappeared, including you. It was a moment of complete non-occurrence, the absolute opposite of everything that has ever happened in your life up to this moment, because it could not really be said to have happened to you. No doubt, it is a weird realization, but there it is. Following the experience of this absolute nothing is what my teacher aptly calls a “bliss wave.” For some time following this moment of alighting upon Nirvana you feel really relaxed and fresh. These two experiences, seeing that you disappeared and that you also feel great because of it, lead to a very important discovery that will shape how you view yourself from this point forward. You begin to understand in a very deep way that there really is something to this whole idea that the cravings of a “self” are the root of suffering. When it was gone, even for an instant, life suddenly got much better.

Here is how Shinzen Young describes gradual awakening:
https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/

The sudden epiphany that’s described in many books about enlightenment, that has definitely happened to some of my students. And when it happens, it’s similar to what is described in those books. I don’t keep statistics, but maybe it happens a couple times a year. When someone comes to me after that’s happened I can smell it. They walk into the room and before they’ve even finished their first sentence I know what they’re going to say. You remember, right…? Your own case.

When it happens suddenly and dramatically you’re in seventh heaven. It’s like after the first experience of love, you’ll never be the same. However, for most people who’ve studied with me it doesn’t happen that way. What does happen is that the person gradually works through the things that get in the way of enlightenment, but so gradually that they might not notice. What typically happens is that over a period of years, and indeed decades, within that person the craving, aversion, and unconsciousness—the mula kleshas (the fundamental “impurities”), get worked through. But because all this is happening gradually they’re acclimatizing as it’s occurring and they may not realize how far they’ve come. That’s why I like telling the story about the samurai.

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Nirvana - How To

On another forum someone asked for opinions on the best way to experience nirvana. This (with a few modifications) is how I replied:

...

One thing I have found that is not commonly acknowledged in Buddhist practices is that physical relaxation - muscular relaxation - is necessary to fully let go of unpleasant emotions (suffering). The mind and body are interconnected. I understand "letting go" to mean relaxing mentally and physically. The relaxing meditation technique I use is described here:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
When I am fully relaxed nothing bothers me. This is also how I prepare for vipassana.

I do vipassana by watching the activity of my mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sense of self) in meditation and daily life and notice when dukkha arises. I try to see how the ego is involved dukkha arising. I try to be relaxed and let go of dukkha (without suppressing anything). That simple practice covers observing the three characteristics and dependent origination.

To experience nirvana I would say the key is to learn to notice dukkha/suffering/clinging/unpleasant emotions as soon as they arise, and to recognize that you should not get carried away - not become immersed in them but remain a mindful observer and try to stay relaxed or get back to a relaxed state. When you observe the mind, you see thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory, experiences and sense of self are coming into the mind from unconscious processes that you really have little influence over and are sometimes contradictory and not necessarily trying to make you happy. You learn that you are happier if you don't take them too seriously. This explains more about how I practice vipassana:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html

The relaxing meditation teaches you how to be relaxed. The vipassana shows you why it it right to be relaxed instead of letting your mind make you suffer, and trains you to notice the instant dukkha begins to arise so you can let go before you get carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. (observing the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions can help you learn to notice emotions as soon as they arise). Then when things go crazy and your mind/body is trying to make you suffer, you have the habit of rejecting that tendency and relaxing instead. It can be extremely hard to relax when you mind/body is trying to make you upset, you have to have conviction from direct observation that the upset perspective is not "truth", and you have to have very high level of skill in relaxation from repeated practice so that you can do it easily and automatically in adverse situations. When we are stressed we get focused on what is causing the stress (like if the brakes on you car fail) and we forget everything else (like the emergency brake will work if the brake pedal doesn't). So you have to train for emergencies and understand what to do when they happen (don't get carried away by the mind and be relaxed).

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Paleontologist and museum curator explains why the fossil record supports intelligent design not natural selection.

Gunter Bechly was a curator at a museum in Germany. For the 200 year anniversary of Darwin's birth, he put together an exhibit that included a display to disprove intelligent design.  He said:

I made one big mistake I read the books ... [on intelligent design] and what I recognized to my surprise is that the arguments I found in those books were totally different from what I heard either from colleagues or when you watch youtube videos where the discussion is around intelligent design versus neo-Darwinian evolution. And I had the impression on one side that those people are mistreated their position is misrepresented and on the other hand that these arguments are not really receiving an appropriate response and they they have merit.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ToSEAj2V0s)

In this video, Gunter Bechly explains how the fossil record differs from what evolution by natural selection would produce, and he explains how we know that enough fossils have been found to rule out incompleteness as an explanation for that deviation. He also explains why more scientists don't speak about the overwhelming evidence in favor of intelligent design - he lost his job because he spoke the truth.

From the video:

Differences between the fossil record and what evolution by natural selection would produce:

"Darwinism predicts slow changes but the fossil record shows rapid changes"

"The theory predicts gradual changes with small steps but the fossil record shows sudden changes with big steps"

"There is no evidence for gradations of one form of one species into another."

"The fossils are distributed mostly on the terminal branches of the phylogenetic trees but they lack mostly for the internal branches and for the nodes where they should be found according to the theory."

"Even though there are some transitional fossils what we lack is this plethora of transitional fossils that would be predicted by the theory where you would have thousands of small steps that show the transition from one form to another form."

"There is conflicting evidence between the fossil record and between the predictions from the theory. For example between molecular data molecular clock datings between the pattern of appearance that is predicted by the philogenetic reconstruction and the pattern of appearance in the stratigraphical column.

"There are often fossils that are out of place that are found at the wrong place and at the wrong time and conflicting evidence that does not support Darwin's theory can no longer be explained away as an artifact of undersampling or as caused by the incompleteness of the fossil record."

How we know the fossils that have been found represent an accurate portrayal of the history of life:

"Charles Darwin was quite aware that his theory does not agree with the fossil record and so he hoped that this can be explained away with the incompleteness of the fossil record with our insufficient knowledge of geology. And he hoped that over time the gaps would be filled and ultimately the theory would be confirmed by the fossil record but this didn't happen. Now we know a lot more than Darwin did and over time with growing knowledge about the fossil record the problem didn't disappear it even became more acute."

"Darwin's attempt to explain the evidence from the fossil record away as lack of knowledge about the fossil record and the incompleteness of the fossil record is no longer tenable. And here's why, let me first give a metaphor and this example was coined by my colleague Paul Nelson. Imagine you have a new hobby and you walk along the beach and you collect what the flood washes in. You collect starfish and shells and snails every day you find something new. But over time repetition sets in and ultimately you reach a day where you only find over and over again what you already found. And then you know that you have sampled enough to know what is out there."

"Exactly this method is applied in paleontology to statistically test the completeness of the fossil record and in paleontology it's called the collector's curve. In most groups of organisms we know that the fossil record is sufficiently complete to be sure that the gaps that we see and the discontinuities we see are not artifacts of undersampling or of an incomplete fossil record but actually data to be explained."

"But there is another reason why this phenomenon cannot be an artifact and that is if it would be an artifact we should expect that over time the gaps get smaller and the apparent non-gradual transitions become more gradual but what we actually find is that with growing knowledge of the fossil record the problems don't disappear but they get even bigger and bigger and this shows us that nature wants to tell us something."

"The phenomenon of sudden appearances in the fossil record is not just an exceptional case say as in the Cambrian explosion but actually is a pattern that is found everywhere. It is beginning with the very origin of life. It goes up to the origin of human culture. It is found in all periods of earth history. It is found in all geographical regions. And it's found over all taxonomical categories from plants and protists to invertebrate and vertebrate animals. So it's a clear pattern that cries out for an explanation."

"We have no transitional fossils for all the animal body plans and the Cambrian explosion. We have no or nearly no transitional fossils for the origin of the different insect orders, for the different mammal orders. And this for example includes bats. And imagine that the oldest fossil bats that we know are already totally modern hardly distinguishable from a modern bat with completely developed wings already with evidence in the ears for echolocation. They are just there and there's no fossil record showing the many steps that were necessary to build up these body plans by incremental changes."

"Douglas Ervin who is one of the world's foremost specialists on the Cambrian explosion and Douglas Ervin said that it looks like the great taxonomic categories, the classes, came first and that the lower taxonomic categories came later and that it doesn't look like that the large differences were built up by the smaller differences."

Rapid evolution cannot be explained by alteration of regulatory networks. Bechly says, "Recent studies have shown that this is not true every major transition in the history of life required new genes and new proteins."

And various environmental changes that might require rapid evolution do not explain the mechanism for producing new genes.

Microevolution (small changes in existing species) cannot be used to explain macroevolution (large changes resulting in new types of species) because,  Bechly explains, it is known, based on the time it would take for a single mutation to become established in a population, that there is insufficient time for new types of species to have evolved by natural processes. Bechly says, 

"The geologically established windows of time that are available for different transitions in the history of life are orders of magnitude too short to allow for the necessary genetic changes to arise and to spread in an ancestral population and this basically shows that Darwin's theory the neo-Darwinian mechanism is not mathematically feasible."

Bechly explains how it is known that there is insufficient time for new types of species to evolve by natural processes. He says the the time it takes for new species to appear in the fossil record is often similar to the average life span of a single species when there should be many intermediate species needed to produce, for example, a new organ or a new body plan.

The problem for the Darwinian mechanism that is posed by the fact that for many transitions we only have time available that equals the lifespan of just one or two species that come successive after each other is the following: To make a major re-engineering you usually think you would require many successive species which are slightly different from each other and then ultimately after a long time and many different species you get a major new body plan or a new organ. But here you see that you would have to make a jump either with one or two species or even within a species to a totally new reconstruction and so even if common ancestry should be correct this shows that this cannot be explained with an unguided process there you need some kind of intelligence be infused from outside the system to make such a big jump within a single species

There should be many intermediate species between a quadrupedal swimming mammal and a whale, yet the transition happened in a third of the lifespan of a single vertebrate species.

"What we found is that to make the transition between the so-called protocetus which were still quadrupedal swimming animals which were propelling in the water with their hind legs to make this transition to fully marine fish-like whales which swim with reduced legs and driven by the tail fluke for this transition there's only one and a half million years of time available that is according to mainstream evolutionaries knowledge.

Just a third of the lifespan of a single vertebrate species to make this re-engineering from a land animal to a fish-like whale that's unbelievable and shows that there is a major theoretical problem for the unguided process postulated by Darwin.

Blechly goes on to explain that naturalistic alternatives to neo-Darwinism do not solve the problem of the origin of genetic information needed for those mechanism to evolve.

And he says intelligent design is the best explanation for the scientific evidence based on logical inference:

In my view the fossil evidence clearly points towards intelligent design because the observed changes happened much too quickly to be explained by an unguided naturalistic process. They have to be explained with an intelligent agent. And for me personally, really a light bulb went on when I discovered that this is not based on an argument from ignorance, not based on a kind of god of the gaps argument, but it's just based on a rational inference to the best explanation. We know that only intelligent causes can cause this effect we look at the evidence and we see that this evidence clearly points to this cause. So ignoring the evidence from the fossil record that points to intelligent design actually is some kind of science denial

At the end of the video Bechly explains that scientists are not free to express belief in intelligent design because doing so would end their careers and that there are probably many more scientists who believe in intelligent design than those who publicly acknowledge it.

At the natural history museum in Stuttgart as soon as I came out as an intelligent design proponent collaborations were stopped, I didn't get funding anymore, my website was deleted, I was removed as head of an exhibition that I had designed, and ultimately I was told that I was no longer welcome and that I was considered to be a risk for the credibility of the institution. So it's not a big surprise that many scientists even if they are secretly doubting Darwinism are not outspoken about it and stay undercover and after my coming out as an ID proponent I was contacted by two famous colleagues who are famous scientists and world-renowned experts in their fields and they told me very confidentially that they have come to doubt the neo-Darwinian process themselves so probably there are more out there than we think.

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Stop Making the Story About Yourself

As you experience various situations in daily life, you will tend to think about how the situation affects you, and about how you relate to the situation. This creates a story about you, a story where you are the main character, the victim or the hero. Most people are constantly making stories about themselves. This perspective on reality is what causes suffering.

If you observe the activity of your mind, the stream of consciousness, during meditation and daily life, you will see this happening, you will see how you make yourself suffer by making everything about you. When you understand how you make yourself suffer, you will also understand how to stop it.

You will see that when you stop making the stories about you, when you stop taking everything personally, when you stop focusing on yourself, when you stop thinking "I don't like this", "I don't want that", "I want this", I like that", when you stop making yourself the central character in everything that happens, you stop making yourself suffer. But you need to experience it from inside your mind, you need to feel how one way of thinking is suffering and how a different way of thinking doesn't make you suffer.

Mindfulness can help people give up the habit of making themselves the main character in every story. When you are mindful, your mind is in the present moment, you are just aware of what you are doing as you are doing it. You are not imagining, your mind is not wandering, you are not carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, etc, you are not making stories about you that cause you to suffer. Then, when dukkha arises, you can see how you have caused it by making the story about yourself. But if you change the story, let go of that plot, think about the situation without yourself as the main character in the story, you don't suffer. This requires just a tiny change in perspective, a relaxation, a letting go, (not a lot of analytical thinking, not anything mystical, not anything non-dual), and you don't have to suppress anything - just notice the difference in how you feel. The point of mindfulness is not to concentrate the mind as a means of suppressing thoughts and emotions etc, the point is to provide a contrast where dukkha is absent so that when dukkha arises, the contrast is clear and when you return to mindfulness that contrast is also clear. Meditation that is relaxing can also help provide a quiet mind that helps you to maintain mindfulness and experience the contrast.

And then, when you are not making the story about you, you can respond to situations with compassion and reason instead of selfish emotions.

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Copyright © 2024 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Do Buddhists believe in a soul?

On another forum, someone asked about Buddhist beliefs about the soul. Below is my brief reply, an expanded version follows.

In Buddhism consciousness is believed to continue after death, and can be reborn, and experiences karma (experiences the consequences of one's action) from previous lives. However consciousness flows/propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate unchanging thing. Like a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when you are freed from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.

If you watch the activity of your mind you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond our control. If you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts so you don't control your thoughts either. Even if feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to do that come from?

And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble or the sensations we experience form moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, bodily sensations etc - all these are constantly changing. And the feeling of self is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes.

And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.

Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, (or thoughts, emotions and impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.

If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find nor can you find anyone in control in your mind. These beliefs are formed not by religious dogma but by simple observation of the mind.

Here is an expanded version I wrote for this blog.

In Buddhism, consciousness is believed to continue after the death of the physical body and can be reborn and continue to experience karma (the consequences from one's actions) from previous births. However, consciousness flows or propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate thing. It is like the way a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when a person is free from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.

If you watch the activity of your mind, you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond their control. And when you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts arising which shows you don't control your thoughts either. Even if you feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? The activity of the mind arises from unconscious processes, in Buddhist terminology these processes are part of what is called "the aggregates of clinging".

It might seem like the unconscious mind, the source of thoughts, emotions, and impulses is the self. But this source is not unified, one part might be sending the impulse to meditate while another is sending out distracting thoughts. One part might be trying to accomplish a purpose to gratify the ego while another might be sabotaging it because of fear of the consequences of success. The unconscious mind is not a unified thing, it is an aggregate of different functions.

And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble etc, or the sensations we experience from moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, pleasure/pain or bodily sensations etc, all these are constantly changing. The sense of self or the feeling of being is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes. All those selves, the student self, the worker self, the family member self, the sports fan self, the smart self, the nice self, the mean self, the happy self, the angry self, the hot self, the hungry self, come from the aggregates, the unconscious processes that generate other thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences.

When you experience how fleeting all these selves are, you see how unreal each is. Each movement of the mind creates a different self - which one is the real one? Your attachment to self diminishes and you suffer less when you experience this.

And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.

Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, etc (or thoughts, or emotions or impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.

If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find in your body or mind, nor can you find anyone in control in your mind.

Yet, the ego, our idea of the self, is the source of much of our suffering. If we are not shown proper respect, or if we lose a contest, or if we experience some misfortune that makes one seem to be a loser, we suffer because those events hurt our self image, our ego is hurt. If you watch your mind carefully, you will see that most suffering has the ego involved. Feeling successful in life depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want.

But the ego is not a real solid material thing, it is an abstract concept. Yet we act as if it is a real thing that we have to defend from insult and injury. The ego is just a product of the same unconscious processes that produce any thought, emotion, or impulse. When someone can see this in their own mind, when they see how suffering is caused by their egoistic emotions and they recognize that those emotions are not chosen but arise from unconscious processes unasked for and uninvited, they understand that those emotions are not truth, those emotions are not an inevitable aspect of reality. Different people in the same situation might have different emotional reactions. Egoistic emotions are not inevitable like some laws of nature. When people realize that egoistic emotions are not reality, that the ego (the self) isn't a real thing, it becomes much easier for them to let go of egoistic emotions and they suffer much less. Recognizing "It is the ego coming from the aggregates" can end a lot of suffering.

The belief that the ego, the self, is not an actual thing is obtained not from religious dogma, but by simple observation of the mind.

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Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Identity-view

https://mohitvalecha.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/stepping-on-a-frog/

Once there was a monk who specialized in the Buddhist precepts, and he kept to them all his life. Once when he was walking at night, he stepped on something. It made a squishing sound, and he imagined he had stepped on an egg-bearing frog.

This caused him no end of alarm and regret, in view of the Buddhist precept against taking life, and when he finally went to sleep that night he dreamed that hundreds of frogs came demanding his life.

The monk was terribly upset, but when morning came he looked and found that what he stepped on was an overripe eggplant. At that moment his feeling of uncertainty suddenly stopped, and for the first time he realised the meaning of the saying that “there is no objective world.” Then he finally knew how to practice Zen.

If you want to know what this story really means you can follow the link.

What I want to discuss here is that this story illustrates an important principle of how to let go of attachments and aversions, how to let go of unpleasant emotions.

The monk was upset when he thought he stepped on a frog, but when he found out it was an eggplant he wasn't upset any more.

When you are upset and it is due to a misunderstanding, if you clear up that misunderstanding, you can let go easily and you won't be upset any more.

When people are upset, usually it is their ego that is making them upset, but they don't notice it because it feels like a normal and unalterable fact of reality that they should be upset in that situation. That is the fundamental misunderstanding of most suffering, we think our emotions reflect reality when they are really produced by the ego, by egotistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view, Sakkaya-ditthi).

But if people examine their feelings and see their reaction is somehow due to egotistical or egocentric thinking, then they realize they are being silly, they don't have to be upset. And they can let go.

Sometimes it's hard to see how our ego is hurting us because these ways of thinking are so ingrained we don't even notice them, we just think "this is reality and it is not always nice." 

But if you can examine your thinking and see how it is really your ego that is causing the trouble, you see it was just a misunderstanding (you thought it was an inevitable aspect of reality but then you realized it was just your ego), and you can let go. Then reality is a lot nicer.

It might be hard to understand how it can be so easy to let go of unpleasant emotions just by recognizing the involvement of ego in suffering, so I will provide an example.

One day I walked to the grocery store. Often when I would go out for a walk, I would walk in my neighborhood and it would be a pleasant walk. It was a residential neighborhood, there wasn't much traffic, there were birds singing, and cute rabbits in nicely landscaped yards. But that day I needed to go to the store and instead I had to walk on streets with a lot of noisy traffic, past storefronts on streets with litter. It wasn't very nice. I didn't like it. It was better to walk in the residential area than the business district. Then I recognized it was my ego that was upsetting me. This idea that it is better to walk by the houses rather than the busy streets is egoic thinking. The word "better" is saying something about winners and losers. If you have what is better, you are a winner, if you have something worse, you are a loser. I realized it was my ego that didn't like the walk to the store, my ego (the aggregates) wanted to do what was better and not what was worse. When I understood that, the feelings of better and worse disappeared. I (the aggregates) felt like the walk to the store was not better or worse, just different. It had it's own flavor of familiarity, there were people in the cars and stores, it enabled me to get the groceries I needed, etc. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad ether. Really, it wasn't good or bad. The problem was my unconscious egoistic reaction.

This kind of thing can happen many times a day. We have ingrained in our thinking that if we get what we want and avoid what we don't want, we are successful, and if we don't get what we want and can't avoid what we don't want, it is a failure. If you are mindful, if you watch the activity of your mind in meditation and daily life, and can see how every little twinge of dukkha, every little craving or aversion, every little liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, is your ego is making you suffer, you can let go each time. It sounds simple, but this kind of thinking is so ingrained, it seems like an aspect of reality rather than something you are doing to yourself. You have to be alert to how you feel and then examine your feelings and see what role the egoistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view) is playing. If you do it, you can remove a lot of gloom from reality.

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.

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Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.